India Government Budget

The government in its 2022-2023 union budget sees India’s fiscal deficit to be 6.9% of GDP in 2021-2022 and 6.4% in 2022-23 as the government aims to boost spending on transport, infrastructure and construction projects, while it proposes to trim it down to 4.5% by 2025-2026. Government’s total expenditure is projected at 39.45 trillion INR in 2022-23, with 480 billion INR estimated for affordable housing, 195 billion INR for solar projects and 200 billion INR for highways expansion. On tax front, unblended fuel will be imposed additional duty from October 2022 while customs duty would be revoked for stainless steel and steel products, reduced for chemicals and exemptions extended for steel craps. However, the budget is not populist and lacked measures to combat the current inflationary and slowing economy.